Mountain Hopping in the PNW

and a 2,000 mi shakedown run for the Husqy project.

As a pre-requisite for our move out to Portland in November we decided to load up the bikes and explore the Pacific North West with some good friends. The 4 of us who came from Milwaukee trailered the bikes to Missoula, MT where we shed the truck. Out west we met up with Erik from Cincinnati, and Seattleites Mike and Jenny of Pack Animal. Our goal was to ride the PNW heavy hitters Rainier, Hood, and St. Helens with the girls spending the weekend at the Dreamroll on Mt. Adams. We were on the bikes for 6 days, bathing in glacial rivers, camping in furry forests, getting engaged, getting flat tires, low siding and hot springing. I'll let Jenny's lens tell the rest of the story and follow this post up with a Dreamroll recap. An all girls moto camp out deserves it's own real estate.

Husqvarna Update

The week prior I was wrestling with the Husqy's intense vibration rattling everything to pieces, along with a very stubborn dragging clutch. I was barely able to get the bike rideable before the trip. My first attempt at making a luggage rack out of aluminum resulted in the welds cracking within the first 5 minutes. See, the TE570 was Husqvarna's bare bones, no frills platform. No key, no starter, no battery, steering lock, horn, or gauges. And unlike it's stablemates the TE400 and TE610... no counter balancer on the crank shaft. It's like straddling an oversized palm sander designed to polish out your genitals until you're smooth as a Ken doll. The trade off is it's a 260lb 56hp wheelie machine with an on/off switch for a throttle. In an attempt to sort out the clutch I swapped oil weights 3 times and replaced both the discs and the plates before I just ran out of time. It wanting to constantly lurch forward made red lights a real treat. Consequently I got pretty good at kicking it over first try in traffic. After swapping in a new rear sprocket in a Missoula TJ Maxx parking lot she was as ready as she was going to get. Over the next 2,000 miles I'd rattle the guts out of the PIAA lights and stuff the radiator 4 or 5 times but all in all it was a great shakedown run. Now it's time to make the final adjustments, tear it all down and send everything out for paint, powder and plating.